Changing your school lineup is a difficult task. Getting students to the new schools, on time, is equally challenging.

Last January, the Elmira school district asked Mary Davenport, dispatcher and router, to figure it out.

"I went down to a room all by myself and that is what I did until I had it done by the end of June. I was doing that full time … They called it Mary's closet," said Davenport, a 10-year veteran of the transportation department who has worked as a driver and organizes transportation for field trips.

Davenport worked with a specialized computer program she got from Greater Southern Tier BOCES and then plugged in the district's schools and every student's address.

"I generated student lists for each school, then figured out how many there were in a geographic area," she said. Through lots of trial and error, she said she mapped out the best routes to drop off and pick up students in a timely fashion.

The effort also required regular meetings and collaboration with administrators and principals, and constant revisions and even more as both public and private school students moved in or out of the district.

The work extends beyond new bus routes and stops: it contributed to new start and end times for the district's 11 schools when they open on Wednesday.

"The hardest challenge was trying to make everything flow within the time allotted … The school times were adjusted to accommodate how much time the bus routes needed," Davenport said.

From January to June, Elmira school district bus dispatcher and router Mary Davenport worked with computer programs to develop new bus routes to accommodate the new high school and reorganized middle schools. (Photo: BOB JAMIESON / STAFF PHOTO)

Fay Gosper of South Corning, a bus mechanic for the Elmira school district, operates the vehicle while it is on a lift during a state safety inspection in the district bus garage (Photo: BOB JAMIESON / STAFF PHOTO)

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Chad Wilcox of Cohocton, a bus inspector for the state Department of Transportation, does a safety check Aug. 13 on an Elmira school bus in the district bus garage. (Photo: BOB JAMIESON / STAFF PHOTO)

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The district will see a number of major changes to secondary schools in September.

• Southside High School and Elmira Free Academy were merged at Southside into the larger Elmira High School.

• Elmira Free Academy has been renamed Ernie Davis Academy and will house grades eight and nine for all district students.

• Broadway Middle School becomes Broadway Academy and will house grade seven for all district students.

Gone is the era when the Chemung River determined where you went to school. Now, middle and high school students will cross it, but only on a bus. The changes also will require 13 buses stopping at Broadway Academy to take on secondary students transferring from another bus.

There will be 800 first-time riders, increasing daily ridership from 3,400 to 4,200 students (not including special needs students), said Mark Yusko, the district's former head bus mechanic who is now the interim supervisor of transportation.

That number fluctuates daily, right into the school year. Sometimes, it affects buses already filled to capacity, requiring revising some routes, meaning new buses, stops or times for some students.

Letters were mailed out earlier in August to families detailing students bus route, bus stop and pick-up and dropoff times.

"Households used to get 27 pages of each and every run and the bus rules. Now, they get their child's run and a separate handbook on the code of conduct," Yusko said.

District Superintendent Hillary Austin expressed appreciation of the efforts of Yusko, Davenport and others.

"The Elmira City School District Transportation Department has worked diligently over the past six months to establish a transportation plan that is conducive to getting our students to and from school in a timely and safe manner," she wrote in an email. " A great deal of collaboration went into completing this project and I am proud of our staff for their continued efforts to make the Elmira City School District be the best that it can be."

Plotting routes

On a recent weekday morning, Yusko sat at his desk at the district bus garage on Cedar Street. Globs of red dots cluttered maps on two computer screens, representing bus stops.

"You can't stop at every house. I do it by block or two blocks," Davenport said. "The (new) ones I created this year were for the high school and middle schools because they are coming across the bridge. Nothing has really changed this year for the elementary schools."

District buses traveled a combined 770,000 miles last year and this fall routes will increase from 38 to 44.

"It's because of buses running across the river and the change in (school) times," Yusko said.

The district has 100 vehicles, more than 80 of them buses and vans, including 50 66-passenger models, six wheelchair accessible buses and six seven-passenger vans.

The district's 70 drivers represent 12 more than last year, six of them new employees, the other six back from disability.

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A recruiting sign for drivers hangs on the fence at the entrance to the Elmira school district bus garage on Cedar Street in Southport.
(Photo:
BOB JAMIESON / STAFF PHOTO
)

Most drivers will do routes to two schools, such as partnered elementary schools, working two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon.

"They will do Coburn and Riverside, or do Broadway and Ernie Davis academies. Some will do two, three schools and a transfer (route)," Davenport said.

"Twenty to 25 minutes is the average amount of time elementary school students are on the bus," said Davenport, adding her goal was keep all bus rides under 45 minutes, except for outlying routes that require a longer ride.

Davenport said she shortened some elementary school runs that were really long last year. "Nobody wants their kids standing out on the streets, especially out in the country at 6:30 in the morning," she said.

She said she also tried to keep the younger students with their normal driver, which makes them feel more secure.

"They enjoy watching them grow," Yusko said of the relationship between drivers and students. "From kindergarten to senior year, especially if it is a country run."

Private schools

In all, a few hundred students who live in the Elmira district are bused daily to private schools if they meet distance requirements. That includes places such as Corning Christian Academy and the Alternative School for Math and Science in Corning, Chemung Valley Montessori School in Big Flats as well as Catholic and Christian schools in the Elmira area.

Notre Dame High School and Holy Family Primary School in Elmira account for most of those riders. State aid requires it and funds it.

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Chad Wilcox of Cohocton, a bus inspector for the state Department of Transportation, does a safety check Aug. 13 on an Elmira school bus in the district bus garage.
(Photo:
BOB JAMIESON / STAFF PHOTO
)

"We have one bus that goes to the Rochester (N.Y.) School for the Deaf," Yusko said, adding that students spend the week there. "We had one student last year, two this year. We sent one of the 20-passenger school buses. It (will be) just those two kids on the bus."

Yusko said state aid pays for the run. He plans to check with surrounding districts to see if they can combine their routes to the specialized Rochester school.

Bus rules

Despite a big influx of first-time riders, Yusko and Davenport said they don't expect a sharp increase in disciplinary issues.

"If they were the younger kids, yes. We went through our issues (a few years ago) with the reorganizations of the elementary schools," Davenport said. "The older kids, you can reason with them, and they are not scared."

Yusko said new security cameras were installed in all buses at the beginning of last school year. "All the big buses have a three camera head system," Yusko said.

In addition, the smaller 20-passenger buses that carry special education students each have an aide aboard and pick up and drop those student off at their homes, he said.

Even the best-designed plans must be revised.

"Every day I get changes. Yesterday, it was 23," Davenport said earlier this month. "My student is now going to Elmira High School instead of Notre Dame. My student is now going to Notre Dame instead of Elmira High. Last year, I had over 480 changes the last two weeks before school. That is probably my biggest challenge throughout the whole school year."